Any advise, tips, warnings, comments would be appreciated. Would be nice to get especially my questions addressed - which sometimes proves to be difficult at subsim...
After having considered it repeatedly in the past 3 years, I am about to get a new system, and this time I am serious, and it is already decided - mid-March will be the time. I plan to keep my monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer and scanner, plus CH HOTAS, wheel and all that hardware stuff. I further plan to invest not more than 750 Euros for both a system and Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium or Professional. That depends on whether or not I expect to have use for the XP mode or not. Well - have I?
It will be an Intel-basing system with dual cores, I am thinking about an i5 with 2x3.2 or 2x3.33 GHz, that seems to be a range with a reasonable bang-for-the-buck score - or not? No need for quad cores, I lack the software supporting it, and I do not buy latest action games needing them.
What's more, 4 GB RAM shall do for my needs - which is older software that I list below. Is there any point for me in getting more, considering that software?
nVidia GFX board for me. Must not be top notch, but a reasonable price. Shall be not worse than my current 7950. Maybe a GTX460 - is that considered a fair and economic deal currently?
Have sound cards disappeared in recent years? It seems onboard sound no longer is a problem for the system, like it often was 8 years ago!?
I need USB boards, and not just 2 or 3. A good hub.
Quietness would be nice if it is within the budget.
Solid cooling.
Looks, LED tower gimmicks etc: no need and no desire for that. Will not pay for artwork on the tower and electric eye candy.
Anything special I should take care of, or watch out for? Reliability and a long endurance of the components is what I am looking after. Any especially recommendable mainboard, or nice sales offers for comp0lete ready-systems that meet my criteria that you happen to know about IN GERMANY ?
Beside the obvious driver stuff, I for the main will run MS Office 2003 (especially Words 2003), if possible Paint Shop Pro 9, and the following games, not all of them necessarily, but maybe I will reinstall some of them when I am in a sentimental mood - as far as I found out at Google, they all have been managed to get running under Windows 7, but some maybe with problems for some users:
FS9 + addons (problems for some people)
Falcon 4 AF (pfsp)
Oblivion(pfsp)
SBP-PE
Medieval 2
ArmA2
Fallout 3
Danube Front '85
WinSPMBT
SH3
GTR2
Richard Burns Rally
Nascar 2003 Papyrus (pfsp)
Sim City 4 (pfsp)
TDU
Schach etc
Am I missing any possible disappointments there?